


Last fuck to give

by knitmeapony



Series: Chicago Fifth Star [1]
Category: Changeling: The Lost
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-05
Updated: 2015-05-05
Packaged: 2018-03-29 05:11:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 811
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3883591
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/knitmeapony/pseuds/knitmeapony
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A post-game snippet with the end of Ace and Helper.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Last fuck to give

Two years, four months, nine days, one hour and twenty-seven minutes after they return to the real world, Hours brings a plain glass bottle full of... let's call it liquor ... to the foot of the tree that is Helper.

"Should've brought Thorns," she said, "so I know you fucking well understand me, but this'll do."

Hours -- Ace, really, at the moment -- sat down with her back to the tree. "You wouldn't know this, I never told anyone, but when I died and became Hours, Ace actually had some time left over. See, I gave up my life force, that night I saved Devorah. Not my minutes." She uncorked the dirty bottle and took a swig. Not that she gets drunk, anymore, it just feels right to drink something distlled through an engine right now.

"So I had a little time left. Y'know, Ace had time left. Not a lot. Two years, four months, nine days, one hour and forty-three minutes, if I'm gonna be specific. It's weird to think that now I know the exact minute I would've died, if I hadn't already died. Totally fucking perfect that my life was non-linear. Anyway." Another swig, and she set the bottle down, twisting so the bottom pressed into the soft earth, and the mouth of it leaned against the tree.

"So I've been spending it. All of it. I thought about saving it, at first, but... nah." She rested her head on the trunk of the tree. "I mean, I've spent it non-linearly, but in the end it comes back to the same place. I have fourteen minutes left of Ace. Fourteen minutes I can feel. Fourteen minutes things matter to me the way they used to." She looked up at the sky through the trees and sighed. The silence of the night stretched out, heavy and clinging.

"This probably isn't healthy. I should've spent my last few minutes, I don't know. Giving Devorah a kiss, or laughing with Peter, or leaning on Tante, just feeling the fire. But you know, I always thought you were going to be the end of all things for me. And now you fucking are, in a way." She patted the root near her hip.

"I'm glad I had these minutes, I really am. I mean, the ones before, not the ones I'm spending here. I got to feel things I didn't when I was alive. Things were right, between Peter and me. And decent, between me and Judith. Things've been more like a family, more than they have been in a long-ass time. And that night, that last night in the Shadow City, when Glau gave me a way out..." She took a shaky breath and wiped the tears off her cheeks, slow and easy, relishing that they were there.

"Do you know, that's the first time anyone gave me a way out? That's the first time I didn't have to go into a situation feeling so goddamned sure that I was going to have to sacrifice myself. The first time someone thought of me, early, and we barely knew each other but I hope he goddamned well knows how much I appreciate it. Heh, I should've used this time to tell him that." She took a handkerchief out of her sleeve and wiped down her face before twisting it as tight as she could manage, over and over. "I knew this wasn't fucking healthy. Ah well."

She sat like that, cloth wrapped so tight it would have hurt her if that were possible. Her skin wore against it, instead, and when she finally let go it was frayed, all around the edge of the twist. She twisted it tighter, and just let time stretch out, let the minutes tick away.

"So here we are again. You know when I found out you'd become the Wizard, I blew out a tree? I mean I iced it over and took it down with my bare fucking hands. Pretty ironic." She took the twist of the cloth and fed it into the top of the bottle. "I don't forgive them for what they did to Marlow. But it's pretty fucking convenient for me, what they did to you. Two minutes, and there's no more Ace. Two minutes, and I will have literally run out of fucks to give. So. Helper. For my last act of emotional abandon..."

She pulled out a lighter and lit the handkerchief where it poked out of the top of the bottle. "My very last fuck. I give it to you." She smiled. "Fuck you."

She threw the bottle and it hit up high -- then she slowed down the fire so it would last longer. Slowed down just the flames to give the tree time to catch properly.

Ace threw the bottle. Ace made it catch.

Hours walked away and let it burn.


End file.
